can I get a note to trigger at note off signal?

[Gaja]

Hey Reasontalk,
I have a question that I need help with.
I'm doing a sound design project and have a combinator containing several nnxt and I need one of the nnxt to get triggered whenever I release a key on my keyboard.
Is that possible to do, and if so, how?
I'm greatful for your input.

cheers
fred

[crimsonwarlock]

Charlotte Envelope Generator can do this: https://www.reasonstudios.com/shop/rack ... generator/

[Loque]

Thor has a note off trigger AFAIR which can be used on top.

[selig]

Yes, it’s possible on the NNXT - I did exactly that with my Selig B3 for key click on/off. I’m not in the studio until tomorrow, and will let you know the settings (or if you have the ReFill check it out). IIRC, you basically just create a tiny loop at the front of the sample and set it’s zone to Play to End or similar (release loop?). While the key is down you loop the silent front of the sample, then when you release the key it plays out to the end. I’ll let you know the exact settings and how long of a silence you need at the top (very short IIRC).

[joeyluck]

Yeah as selig mentioned, this can be done with looping and using the FW-SUS play mode.

I have found that I can set the Loop Start and Loop End to be the same. I can also set those to be the same as the sample start, if the start is the true start of the sample from silence just before.

Here I have Loop Start and End set to 0% as well as the Sample Start. And then I have the release set to full for what I wanted to hear.

Note Off.png (126.28 KiB) Viewed 1165 times

[Gaja]

Ah, You guys!
It's been a long time since I was here and still you guys are awesome! Quick to help and effective!
Thank you so much.
I used the method Joey proposed.
It does exactly what I need it for and will save me a ton of time!
Thanks again, Joey!

@Loque I remember Thor being able to do this as well, but couldn't quite figure out, how to use it. Do you have a link to a resource that explains how to use Thor's Note Off trigger (or are able and willing to explain yourself)? Thanks!

[JiggeryPokery]

Yeah as selig mentioned, this can be done with looping and using the FW-SUS play mode.

I have found that I can set the Loop Start and Loop End to be the same. I can also set those to be the same as the sample start, if the start is the true start of the sample from silence just before.

Here I have Loop Start and End set to 0% as well as the Sample Start. And then I have the release set to full for what I wanted to hear.


Note Off.png

FWIW this is also somewhat dependent on what you need to trigger. This is, IRC, a non-workable solution in Sustain-limited triggering, as NNXT's FW-SUS option is always post-envelope AD stages (as you note, you need a long Release time too, that's because of course there is no Release applied if Decay/Sustain has already reduced the sound back to zero. This technique is handy but only works in scenarios where you have full(ish) Sustain level, otherwise you won't hear the "off-gate" triggered sound if Sustain is 0 and you've triggered the note beyond the Attack/Decay times. So it's absolutely not a gate-off event per se. The event still starts at gate on, you're just looping silence until gate off, and the envelope applied accordingly. That you need to apply Release time also means the NNXT "note-off" sounds tends by design tend to need to be pretty short, hence it's typically only useful for key-click type events, and can't be used for looping tones, as you've already used your loop (unless you use a long pre-looped one-shot sample). It's the single weirdly short-sighted and frustrating limitation in NNXT's otherwise brilliant design.

[Edit: Thinking about how we did the Harmonic Synth, it's important to note that main issue with any note-off trigger, is that in typical use you cannot apply Sustain to any looped tone after triggering, cos then you've got no way of turning it off I'm wondering now if that's why they did FW-SUS that way, to avoid having to deal with this in the UI: On the Harmonic Synth I changed the options when selecting Osc 2's Note Off triggers to remove the ability to apply Sustain. Charlotte gets away with it as it's a dedicated 3-Stage note off envelope: normally it's a note-off ADR, but for "special purposes" you can set the release trigger to e.g. ADS!]

[AnotherMathias]

The NN-XT max release time of 200 seconds should be plenty for any length of non-looped release sample you might want.

It's probably pretty rare that someone wants to trigger a looped section of a sample on key-off, and have it triggered indefinitely. Unless you like drones a lot!

If you have a looped sample (for example, a single-cycle waveform) that you want triggered on note off, there's a possible workaround. But you forfeit most uses of the filter: Just set the Mod Env to a 100% sustain, zero second release, and modulate the filter (set to LP 12 or 24) negatively 100%. The filter will muffle the sound entirely, until it pops back up on release. As always, though, you're limited to a simple Release envelope.

[joeyluck]

Yeah the workaround isn't ideal. I'd simply like samples to be assigned to either note-on or off. I've requested they add note-off functionality to Mimic, which would be really great. Or to be able to assign within one sample on NN-XT or Mimic, what is triggered with note on and optionally, what is triggered with note-off.

For me, it's for those short sounds. As mentioned, the key clicks, but also capturing the envelope decay/release of a sampled synth or the natural decay/tail of a sung note, etc.

I also wish they would add note-off to the Combinator. It could either be as a source, or a switch found maybe between Velocity Range and Performance Controllers to toggle note-on/off.

[selig]

The NN-XT max release time of 200 seconds should be plenty for any length of non-looped release sample you might want.

Actually, you can get it to do an infinite hold simply by maxing out both the main Amp Release control at the top of the device and the Amp Envelope release in the editor.

As for a note off trigger, not sure what the limitations are with this approach since I’ve only briefly explored it. But you can use Thor to convert Note On CV to Note Off CV. You have to assign Key Gate to a CV output @ -100, then also assign a rotary at 127 (or a button set to ON) to the same CV out at 100%. One issue with this is it sends a note ON whenever there is no note played, so it’s always playing one note or the other. This may or may not present a problem when loading the patch for the first time…also not sure this works for polyphonic performances.

[AnotherMathias]

For me, it's for those short sounds. As mentioned, the key clicks, but also capturing the envelope decay/release of a sampled synth or the natural decay/tail of a sung note, etc.

For those uses, the current method of setting a zero loop point for the release layer works perfectly well, no?

Of course, I'd be all for more such "pro" type features for NN-XT!

[joeyluck]

For me, it's for those short sounds. As mentioned, the key clicks, but also capturing the envelope decay/release of a sampled synth or the natural decay/tail of a sung note, etc.

For those uses, the current method of setting a zero loop point for the release layer works perfectly well, no?

Of course, I'd be all for more such "pro" type features for NN-XT!

Yes it works, but it's a bit tedious versus just being able to assign whether a sample is triggered with note on or off. I believe other samplers also allow you define the note on and off using the same sample without duplicating it to another layer.

[JiggeryPokery]

The NN-XT max release time of 200 seconds should be plenty for any length of non-looped release sample you might want.

It's probably pretty rare that someone wants to trigger a looped section of a sample on key-off, and have it triggered indefinitely. Unless you like drones a lot!

If you have a looped sample (for example, a single-cycle waveform) that you want triggered on note off, there's a possible workaround. But you forfeit most uses of the filter: Just set the Mod Env to a 100% sustain, zero second release, and modulate the filter (set to LP 12 or 24) negatively 100%. The filter will muffle the sound entirely, until it pops back up on release. As always, though, you're limited to a simple Release envelope.

You're not wrong in what you're writing, but I think perhaps you're misunderstanding where the limitation is and overlooking what it should (arguably) have been able to do in the first place.

A Gate-Off note is not inherently indefinite even if looped. It's just you can't nominally have it Sustained, as I explained above, else you get the drone, as you rightly concurred, unless the Gate Off Envelope includes a specific Hold time, which NNXT does, but opts not to make use of by having the AHDSR only trigger at Gate On!! Ignoring Hold, though, which isn't an especially common option in envelopes, a looped Note Off event could still have still have Attack and Release, which you can set from 0.01ms for instant off or to 60s or whatever, or any other normal Release value: so it behaves like any other looped Note On event with a long Release but with the ability to fade in. It's just triggering a different sound, rather than just fading out the existing one.

With the FW-SUS behaviour you don't have that option because you've already wasted the loop on holding it on the first sample frame. So it's only of use with one-shot samples. Those samples can be long if you prebake a looped tone but it becomes a one-shot sample with a baked-in A[H]DSR curve. For example, you might want more a pad-like effect to trigger note-off, so you have to prepare the samples in advance if needing such behaviour live. Though most likely it isn't that performance-critical and you do "note off" events on entirely separate tracks and devices, but triggering them note-on like everything else and moving the note around until it matches where you need it to trigger it in relation to the note it's supposed to be Offing

So again, absolutely, for short key-off noises, yes FW-SUS including the filter trick you describe, it's fine. But again remember it's still post-AHD, so you cannot apply either Attack, Hold and Decay to the sound except in the most time-limited of circumstances.

Incidentally, the same issue arises using the Delay control in NNXT.

I loved idea of that Delay function back in the day, as a potential way of creating evolving pads for example. In practice, though, it's fundamentally useless, as a) it's pretty short max delay time in terms of the lengths you'd want for evolving pads, and b) again crucially it's also triggering the AHDSR from the initial "Gate On" point, not at "Gate On + Delay time", which I would argue is the expected and desired behaviour (you can't use Hold to get around it, as you've already lost the Attack stage). I still think NNXT is probably in the top 5 devices PH ever did. But that Note Off/Delay behaviour was very undercooked.

[AnotherMathias]

You're not wrong in what you're writing, but I think perhaps you're misunderstanding where the limitation is and overlooking what it should (arguably) have been able to do in the first place.

Aha, gotcha now.
It's probably rare that one would need a full AHD cycle on a release-triggered sample, but as you mentioned, there are times where it would be useful. I haven't encountered a need for it for my uses this far, but I tend to equal "long evolving pads" as "long evolving boredom".

If Reason Studios were to EVER add features to NN-XT, one way to address this could be to modify the Delay knob to include "delay until key-off" at its longest knob setting. But then again, at that point they might as well just allow for a proper key-off setting in Play Mode.

I agree that the Delay knob isn't very useful. My main complaint is that it would be much more versatile if it also would delay the onset of the sample playback. RV7000 MkII allows you to delay the playback of an IR file in the Predelay section, something like that could be useful here.

One silver lining of the current Amp Envelope configuration (when used with key-off samples) is that you have the option to set a suitable Decay and Sustain to fade the volume of the key-off sample the longer you hold the note.
For example, the key-off thunk of a piano, you wouldn't want that at full blast if you've already held the note for 7 seconds, at which point the main piano sample has faded to near silence. Setting a 10 second decay time (and zero sustain) would bring that key-off thunk down to a more suitable volume.
More full-functioned samplers may have this as an official setting - SFZ language, for example has the rt_decay opcode, that sets "The volume decrease (in decibels) per seconds after the note has been attacked." But it's kind of cool that you can still make it happen in NN-XT. One of many great tricks!

[AnotherMathias]

Actually, you can get it to do an infinite hold simply by maxing out both the main Amp Release control at the top of the device and the Amp Envelope release in the editor.

Great tip! Might be handy for something like using it for a vocoder carrier.
I played a nice chord a half hour ago, and it's still going...

[Gaja]

Luckily in my case, it's just one-shots that need triggering, so I luckily don't need any advanced holding behaviour.
It's really interesting though. I haven't thought about note off triggers for anything else but one-shots.
I agree with you though: the NNXT is a really versatile sampler, especially in a combinator with other stuff.
Great fun ahead

Yeah as selig mentioned, this can be done with looping and using the FW-SUS play mode.

I have found that I can set the Loop Start and Loop End to be the same. I can also set those to be the same as the sample start, if the start is the true start of the sample from silence just before.

Here I have Loop Start and End set to 0% as well as the Sample Start. And then I have the release set to full for what I wanted to hear.


Note Off.png

FWIW this is also somewhat dependent on what you need to trigger. This is, IRC, a non-workable solution in Sustain-limited triggering, as NNXT's FW-SUS option is always post-envelope AD stages (as you note, you need a long Release time too, that's because of course there is no Release applied if Decay/Sustain has already reduced the sound back to zero. This technique is handy but only works in scenarios where you have full(ish) Sustain level, otherwise you won't hear the "off-gate" triggered sound if Sustain is 0 and you've triggered the note beyond the Attack/Decay times. So it's absolutely not a gate-off event per se. The event still starts at gate on, you're just looping silence until gate off, and the envelope applied accordingly. That you need to apply Release time also means the NNXT "note-off" sounds tends by design tend to need to be pretty short, hence it's typically only useful for key-click type events, and can't be used for looping tones, as you've already used your loop (unless you use a long pre-looped one-shot sample). It's the single weirdly short-sighted and frustrating limitation in NNXT's otherwise brilliant design.

[Edit: Thinking about how we did the Harmonic Synth, it's important to note that main issue with any note-off trigger, is that in typical use you cannot apply Sustain to any looped tone after triggering, cos then you've got no way of turning it off I'm wondering now if that's why they did FW-SUS that way, to avoid having to deal with this in the UI: On the Harmonic Synth I changed the options when selecting Osc 2's Note Off triggers to remove the ability to apply Sustain. Charlotte gets away with it as it's a dedicated 3-Stage note off envelope: normally it's a note-off ADR, but for "special purposes" you can set the release trigger to e.g. ADS!]